Proschan is talking about life without net neutrality, therules the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) votedto repeal in December. In a nutshell, the FCC rescinded rules— established in 2015 — that reclassified internet serviceproviders (ISPs) as common carriers under Title II of theCommunications Act of 1934. Title II prohibits “any unjustor unreasonable discrimination in charges, practices, classifi-Since the vote, many e-tailers like Proschan have beenleft scratching their heads about what an internet withoutnet neutrality might mean for their businesses. Among themore serious concerns is that large telecommunications com-panies like AT&T and Verizon will block or throttle contentor enter into paid prioritization — a pay-to-play scenario. “If the user experience on a small site is worse than on alarge site, you can easily imagine how consumers may gravi-tate away from many of the smaller, up-and-coming compa-nies — which would result in less discovery, less exploration,and less diversity of content,” Proschan says. “If the end ofnet neutrality truly creates fast and slow lanes on the inter-net, it would be an unfortunate outcome for consumers. Isuspect there may be opportunities for larger companies withlarger budgets, but for smaller companies like ourselves, it’shard to see how we’ll really be able to capitalize on this inany sort of meaningful way.”

Confirming — and Easing— Fears

As uncertainty hangs in the
air, one thing is certain: you
don’t have to search far to find
folks who’ll quickly confirm or
ease Proschan’s fears.

Jim Gerace, a spokesperson
for Verizon, says he’s sorry some
folks are concerned about possible inequities in e-commerce
without net neutrality. “The short answer to all these questions is our plans are no different today than they were yes-terday. We have nothing more to add about it,” he says.

Indeed, that last sentence is true. Gerace didn’t respond
to this follow up question: If nothing will change, why did
Verizon support a repeal of the rules?

And the company practically swears it won’t block, throttle, enter into paid prioritization, or discriminate against
lawful content.

Caron Proschan is in agreement with Yogi Berra’s thoughts on foresight: “It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” But her thoughts are a little different and clearly more somber. “It’s hard to predict what the impact would be on e-commerce companies’
revenues, but for our own direct-to-consumer website, it would certainly be
harder to compete without increasing our costs,” says Proschan, who is CEO
of Simply Gum, which sells gum and mints on the internet.